The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) presents their Coonawarra Regional Outlook conference at Chardonnay Lodge today.

With local and national speakers debating such topics as 'operating in a changing environment' and 'global economy-local impacts', the conference aims to give those in the region a better understanding of current and future issues that will affect us.

One of the opening speakers is Dr Jammie Penm, who is Chief Commodity Analyst and Assistant Secretary for the Agricultural Commodities and Trade Branch of ABARES.

Talking to Mornings, Mr Penm explained the issues the conference and his talk would address.

"From an international perspective, also including national issues, there are a number of factors that can significantly influence the outlook for agriculture," he said.

Mr Penm highlighted recent volatility in the Australian dollar and uncertainties for the economic outlook in China as being amongst those factors.

"Economic growth in China has been relatively strong but in recent times has showed signs of slowing down.

"China is now our largest export destination for agricultural produce so that development could also have some implications for the outlook for Australia's agricultural industry."

In his presentation, Mr Penm will also look at research done for the outlook towards 2050.

"With significant income growth and population growth in the Asian region, we expect that there will be opportunity in Asian regions for Australian agricultural exports.

"But one issue in our research suggests that there will be competition."

Mr Penm said competition could come from Asian agricultural producers adopting modern technology for agricultural production.

"It will be important for Australian producers to maintain competitiveness and image of clean, good quality products to take the opportunities presented by the Asian century."

Mr Penm said we will need to continue to improve our productivity to remain competitive in the international market and for opportunities to continue to remain available to our exporters.

Hear Mr Penm discuss foreign ownership of prime agricultural land and more in the full interview, located to the right.

Feeding Asia

Manager of Rabobank in Mount Gambier, Byran Hunt, is also presenting as a guest speaker at the ABARES conference on the topic 'feeding Asia'.

"We've got to remember that the Asian countries, including India, have got a population of about 3.4 billion people, which when you look at Australia's population of 23 million, is a massive market," he said.

"Sixty per cent of Australia's agricultural export current goes to that Asian region and about forty per cent of New Zealand's exports do the same thing."

Mr Hunt said that equated to around $21 billion worth of Australian agricultural exports every year.

In providing a food bowl for Asia, how big a role does he think the South East could play in that?

"We've certainly got some very strong production here in the South East. One of the biggest issues to all these markets is export and how we actually get the food fresh, to market.

Mr Hunt said innovation is happening all the time in how Australia can do just that, which will drive further export into the Asian regions.

Hear Mr Hunt discuss the development of Asian markets, future Australian exports, seasonal conditions for our farmers and how Australia's compete with other international producers.